pipeline

BAGHDAD: On Sunday Iraq signed a deal with Turkey to extend for 15 years the use of the main pipeline linking its northern oilfields to the Mediterranean port of Ceyhan.

Hussein al-Shahristani, the Iraqi Oil Minister said “We have signed a deal to extend use of the pipeline for 15 years,” at the signing ceremony, which was also attended by Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yildiz.

Shahristani said Ankara had given assurances it would not allow the pipeline’s oil to be seized by a third party, and noted the price Baghdad paid to use it had risen to one dollar from 75 cents per barrel.

The quantity of crude being transported along the pipeline would top one million barrels per day (bpd) in the “next few years” from current levels of 450,000-640,000 bpd, he added .

The pipeline runs from Iraq’s northern oil hub of Kirkuk to Ceyhan, the Turkish port from where the crude is shipped to world markets by tanker. The pipeline is 970-kilometre (600-mile) in lenght.

A gas pipeline exploded in the city of Mashhad, in northeastern Iran which killed 10 people and injured more than 20. An earth-moving machine struck a local pipeline which ignited a great blaze in the area.

The director of the National Iranian Gas Engineering and Development Company Mr.Ali Reza Gharibi said that the machine had lost balance in the mountainous terrain before it fell onto the pipeline. He said the injured workers were hurried to the hospital by helicopter. The firefighters were able to control the fire after almost three hours. The pipeline would be fixed within 48 hours and investigations of the incident are being done by a crisis committee.